ILLINOIS -- A 2 1/2-year-old boy was mauled and severely injured by a pit bull Friday in the second dog attack against an Englewood child in three days.
Tyshawn Cherry was playing with his older brother and three sisters in his front yard in the 1400 block of West 73rd Place about 10:20 a.m. when an adult pit bull squeezed through a gap in the chain-link fence, said family members and neighbors who saw the attack.
"The dog pushed him down, started biting his hair off, then started scratching his face," said Christine Cherry, 11, the boy's sister. "Then he bit his leg and started pulling him everywhere. Everybody was saying, `Get it off of him, get it off of him.' But they couldn't get it off."
Robert Langston, 55, was sitting on his porch next door and ran into the yard after hearing the children screaming. Another neighbor handed Langston an iron pipe, which he used to beat the dog.
Langston said it didn't appear the children had provoked the dog.
Tyshawn was freed from the dog, witnesses said, when a man who lives on the same block jumped over the fence, pried the dog's teeth from the boy's head and threw the dog over the fence.
The toddler was taken to Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was listed in serious condition Friday afternoon, a hospital spokesman said.
The man who pried the dog off the boy, Gregory Joseph, 26, was cited for failing to restrain and license a dog, said Sgt. John Brundage of the Englewood District.
Animal control officers never found the dog, which had run toward Joseph's house. Neighbors said they saw Joseph take off his shirt, wrap it around the bloody dog, and then put the dog in a green SUV that was driven away from his house.
(Chicago Tribune - August 25, 2001)
